Printing via a digital press offers enormous flexibility in color printing. A large number of different colors with varying hue, lightness and chroma are printable onto a media from a color space based on four process color inks or six process color inks. In some instances, a special color ink is installed into a digital press for the sole purpose of printing that special color onto a media because the process colors cannot faithfully reproduce that special color using process inks. These special color inks are sometimes referred to as a spot color. In one example, a spot color corresponds to a highly defined color for printing a brand name logo (e.g. Coca-Cola® red) that must be printed with exacting accuracy.
While the ability to install and print spot colors enhances the versatility of a digital press, the spot color does not contribute to the color gamut generally defined by the process colors normally installed in the digital press. Rather, the spot color co-exists with the process color space without the process color space generally affecting the spot color and without the spot color generally affecting the process color space. In addition, the spot color somewhat limits the process color space in the digital press because the spot color ink takes the place of an additional process color, such as orange or violet, that could be part of the main process color space (e.g. cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).
This situation persists because of the conventional technique of constructing a fixed color space or fixed color gamut, based on the process color inks, prior to application of that color gamut at the digital press. Except for minor adjustments made to the color space at the digital press, the color space remains generally the same before and after installation at the digital press.
With these shortcomings, digital press operators still yearn for more control over color spaces when using a digital press.